Thursday, April 7, 2011

You are what (desserts) you eat

I don’t like chocolate.

Let me clarify: I don’t like chocolate the food, not the ethnicity. Geez.

I didn’t think I needed to specify that, EVER, except one Valentine’s day, a former co-worker — a middle aged African American man, and the office’s resident creeper who hit on everyone — put a Hershey’s Kiss on my desk and when I said, “Oh, I don’t like chocolate,” he made an elaborate, embarrassing display of grabbing his heart and telling me never to say that again.

Everybody in the adjoining office cubes stared at me.

I said louder, “THE FOOD! I DON’T LIKE CHOCOLATE THE FOOD! IT’S TOO BITTER!”

He grabbed his heart again and told me that made it worse.

I then told him thank you, and threw the kiss in the garbage can.

(I didn’t say that if it was a white chocolate kiss, then we’d be in business. Uh, no offense. Ha.)

(And, actually, white chocolate isn’t really chocolate, it’s just sugar and milk. That's the only thing I learned when I toured the chocolate museum in Barcelona, Spain. I hardly sampled anything.)

My chocolate repulsion doesn’t make me a popular person to split dessert with (Molten lava cake?? How about a nice lemon bar instead??)

Also, people in the office think I’m being an annoying skinny bitch when I refuse a piece of birthday/baby shower/promotion/retirement cake.

“No, I’m not on a diet, I just don’t like chocolate.”

Silence.Crickets.Eye rolls.

“MINT chocolate I’ll eat!!” I say, but that doesn’t get me any cool points. Promise.

It’s my birthday coming up, and that means CAAAAAAAKKEEE!!! I decided to be pro-active at the office this week and see if I could influence the type of cake that would bear my name in curly letter frosting.